Nendo's "Lacquered Paper-Objects" made on 3D paper printer

Nendo, a Japanese design group has developed "Lacquered Paper-Objects", a collection of small containers using a 3D printer. These small paper-constructed containers have been shaped in various formations to hold objects of many dimensions and they are made for nilfur gallery to be shown during Milan design week 2012.

A 3D printer cuts, stacks and pastes sheets of paper, one sheet at a time. Once the shapes are pasted together excess paper surrounding the object can be quickly pulled away with your fingers or small tools. This technology sounds pretty much like Mcor Technology's Matrix 3D printer, which uses paper as the "ink" to build 3D prototypes. This is a eco-friendly technology which uses water-based adhesive, and the cost of operation is only one tenth the price of plastic jet printers. The only down side of the 3D paper printer is it has only 1/10th the strength of the ABS plastic parts, thus only certain applications are suitable, such as making early prototype, or as Nendo, developing specially designed objects.

For Nendo's "Lacquered Paper-Objects", designers applied in the end a thick lacquer on the surface of container to adhere the edges of its accumulated paper shape, and pulled at the paper's surface, resulting in a unique and mysterious texture like wood grain.